


How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

by gritsinmisery



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen, Introspection, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-07
Updated: 2008-12-07
Packaged: 2017-10-06 19:18:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/56935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gritsinmisery/pseuds/gritsinmisery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This wasn't Harry's plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth -- Original Drabble](https://archiveofourown.org/works/164497) by [gritsinmisery](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gritsinmisery/pseuds/gritsinmisery). 



> Canon bullet wound. Spoiler for 2x02. Beta'd by [](http://candesgirl.livejournal.com/profile)[**candesgirl**](http://candesgirl.livejournal.com/).

How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

It should have been so easy. The lot of them had been blinded by their loyalty – Gene's team for their Guv, and Gene for Harry. They should have leaped eagerly at the 'clues' Harry spoon-fed them, especially after the embarrassment of having a prisoner stolen while being transported in their custody. He'd laid it out so carefully – Dicky Fingers' kidnapping, the armored car job – that he'd practically handed them the case on a platter.

Oh, how he'd played on their emotions, as well; not only the loyalty he knew was set in stone, but every other string he could think of to pull. He was avuncular, just a hard-working copper trying to take out the worst of the bad guys before he retired, a man who needed the help of his former D.I. and his current team. He'd handed them a case file full of photographs of bloody victims to fuel their anger. He'd brought in a black plod from another division to 'help,' knowing the racial tension would throw everyone further off-balance. He'd even eaten humble pie when the mouthy girl 'detective' questioned his abilities.

But Gene's new D.I. – he was a piece of work, that one. First he had tried to talk Gene out of bringing in Malone for lack of evidence, and then he'd run Harry out of the interrogation so Harry couldn't direct it. The git believed people he shouldn't have, which meant not only did they find out about the Post Office blag but Harry was looking at a review board when the re-incarcerated Dicky started singing. Harry admitting he had cancer, playing the man of honor, bringing Gene's wrath down on the lad's head – nothing stopped the boy.

Things got out of control, and the harder Harry tried to rein them in, the further he'd lost his way.

He should have walked away from all this with a tidy fund to allow him to spend his last year of life in comfort, enjoying the knowledge that his most annoying enemy had finally been banged up, and for something he didn't even do! Instead he sat watching a career's-worth of reputation, and all his plans, trickle away along with the blood from the leg wound inflicted by his former right-hand man. All because Gene's D.I. – who valued truth above loyalty -- had dragged Gene kicking and screaming into the light, and the copper Harry had once been had trained Gene too well to let him step back away from it.

Or was it the whisky-coloured gaze of his D.I. that kept Gene from letting his old Guv escape to spend his last few months in peace?

"Every son kills his father." Harry's dad had quoted that to him, and he passed it on now to Gene. Eyeing the skinny little transfer from Hyde, Harry hoped – no, he _knew_ – Gene would feel exactly the same pain, for the same reason, someday soon.


End file.
